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I know Pete loves people talking about Dwarves, so I thought I'd give my ha'penny of thoughts on the Dwarf lists. No Pete, that's OK, you don't have to thank me.

Well, the jury has deliberated, and it seems that the verdict is in. Just like in a John Banks trial, it was an obvious one, and it seems that Gunlines remain the fashion choice for this season's image conscious Dwarf. No surprises there, but a few dashed hopes for those of us who'd wanted Dwarves to become a bit more mobile and chase victory, rather than just blasting if out of the smouldering and shattered corpses of our (distant) foes.

I haven't added up the Quarrellers, Thunderers and Irondrakes, but with an average of nearly 4 war machines (including the odd Bolt Thrower) per list, it's pretty clear that gunlines are the universal choice for the ETC. This is for a comp pack that gives targets cover behind LOS blocking hills and buildings, which should reduce the utility of the big guns. With 2+ Gyrocopters in each list, it'll be hard to close fast with the Dwarves too.

There are only 3 Strollaz runes in the entire tournament, in the Spanish list. 1 marching army our of 16. But as this strategy is completely neutralised by losing the scout roll-off, it's not hard to see why. I think Spain is in for a hard time.

The verdict on anti-magic seems clear; 2 Runesmiths or nothing. The Runelords have all gone home and taken their Anvils with them, probably to train the horde of Smiths who have replaced them. There's 33 amongst 16 armies, everyone with a Spelleater or Spellbreaker between them. Given the nerfing of Dwarf anti-magic (fair enough) and the failure to compensate with a magic phase (WTF, and no, the Anvil doesn't count), that's not surprising. Most armies should be able to overwhelm the Dwarf anti-magic by Turn 4.

I'm on a self-imposed Warhammer exile at the moment, so I don't have the knowledge to rate the other armies. Hopefully there's more variety in those books than the ETC teams have found in the Dwarf one.